I believe the suggested retail price of the mount with the universal can tray (jerry, NATO and Sceptre cans) and a black ratchet-style strap is $159.99 for the driver's or passenger side. The mount without the can tray is used to carry Rotopax containers, and I believe the suggested retail price of the mount only (you supply your choice of Rotopax mount) is $89.99. Any of the standard Rotopax mounts can be used, including extensions for mounting multiple containers.

All should be available from at least one forum vendor soon; at the moment they're available from places that are not registered forum vendors so I won't mention them here.

 

A few more photos of the side mount jerry/Rotopax installed...

 

Very nice, well thought out , that will be next install. When I find out who has them. ?

 

I'm told that the first manufacturing run is done and that orders are coming in from retailers, so you should see them being sold by various retailers very soon. The manufacturer does sell direct, so you may see some photos from people who bought them direct before you see them advertised by retailers (like pipes1004's photos in this thread the other day, and someone who posted theirs on another forum yesterday).

 

One comment/request I've gotten about the side-mount jerry can carrier is for a way to lock the cans in place to prevent theft. The side-mount comes with an excellent ratchet strap that does a great job of securing the can so that it doesn't move around or rattle, but it doesn't have a provision for locking. Here's a locking solution that can be implemented for about $7 including the lock. It's an easy DIY project, just requires a drill and a 1/4" drill bit.

Supplies needed:

* Small u-bolt. I used a Stanley/National #112, which should be available in most hardware stores for maybe $2.00 with a zinc-plated finish. It's also available in stainless for about $2 more. This comes with 2 nuts; for this application 4 nuts are required; they're very common 1/4-20 nuts so most DIY's would likely have two on hand. I also used 4 washers, one under each nut.

* Bike lock or chain lock. I used a Master 8152D combination lock that I picked up at Walmart for $4.77. It's a bit long for this application, but a Master 99DSPT Gun Lock with a 14" cable would probably work well too, it's about $7.50 (Walmart didn't stock this one).

The photo below shows the u-bolt as used, with the extra nuts and washers. The strap that comes with the u-bolt can be used if you like, but is not necessary in this application.



The u-bolt gets installed in the top of the side-mount main frame as shown below. Two holes are drilled, and nuts are placed on both the outside and the inside of the frame and tightened down.



BTW the hole to the right of the u-bolt is the CB antenna mount hole, which is provided in the mount from the factory.

The lock cable is then threaded through the handle of the jerry can and the u-bolt.







That's all there is to it, a $7.00 solution. The u-bolt is secure because the nuts are inside the main panel of the side-mount and can't be accessed when the side-mount is installed. The side-mount itself is secure because one of the nuts attaching it to the Jeep is inside the door opening and inaccessible with the door is closed and locked; one of the other bolts is under the hood so if you've got a good lock that one's inaccessible too.

 

There is another solution using straps that are commercially available, although they have to be modified slightly. The straps are available at amazon (Jerry Can Mounting Straps Steel Mounting Strap - Multitools - Amazon.com) and also Twin City Surplus (Twin City Surplus - Your Outdoor General Store for Work and Play! Camping Gear, Military Surplus, Hunting and More!) and may be available from other sources as well.

The series of photos below shows the original straps (left two photos), and the shortened straps (right two photos). The back side of the strap needs to be shortened to be the proper length to hook into the slot in the side mount holder. Length will vary depending on exactly what can style you have, but the final length is going to be roughly 5". The original strap has a swivel hook on the end that's attached with a rivet; you can either drill out the rivet, shorten the strap, drill a hole at the end for a new rivet, and then use a pop rivet to reattach the hook, or you could just eliminate the swivel hook altogether and bend the shortenend end of the strap into the proper hook shape and length.



One thing you may find with this style strap is that the can may move or rattle a bit in the holder - the strap isn't adjustable so other than latching it you can't tighten it down any further. I modified a set of these straps a few years ago to eliminate rattle - I installed adjustable locking latches. At the time I picked up my latches on eBay, but McMaster-Carr has similar latches that include the padlock loop, their #13435a31 or #13435a32 should work well in this application: McMaster-Carr



This series of photos shows the strap with the original latch (left), and the adjustable latch (right two photos). The original latch is riveted to the strap, so I drilled out the rivets to remove it. Then I drilled new holes in the strap for the mounting holes in the new latch, and used pop rivets to attach it.



One other thing... I found that the lock would sometimes rattle against the strap and I hate rattles so I solved that problem with a short length of Velcro One-Wrap around the strap and the lock:

 

I've worked up another design for locking straps that's adjustable to fit pretty much any can or mounting tray. My goal was to come up with one strap that would work with all types of cans that would be locking and secure, and adjustable so the can could be snugged down tight enough to eliminate can movement or rattles. I also wanted the strap to be flexible to deal with the different can shapes, for example the rounder shape of Sceptre-style cans.

These photos show the new strap design on several types of cans. The tray hooks at the bottom ends of the strap swivel, so the strap can be used either to secure only the can (left photo), or it can be angled to also secure the cap (middle). NATO cans have caps on the ends of a spout so they can't easily be secured that way. The strap is made from removable link chain.



The photos above show the chain without the cover to show the removable link chain; in actual use the link portion is slipped into a flexible sleeve so the links don't scratch metal cans:



Adjustments are done by means of the adjustable latch (3/4" range), and the removeable-link chain (1.5" each link). The math works out to basically infinite adjustment - if the adjustment on the latch isn't enough, remove or add one or more links and start with the other end of the range of the latch adjustment.

The strap is all metal, so it's pretty secure. Here's a photo of the strap on the workbench; a few extra links are in the photo as well. BTW it takes one more link to go over the jerry can cap than it does to go through the handle.



At the moment this design is just at the prototype stage; I don't know if they'll get to production.

 

To prevent the lock from rattling, you may want to consider a Silicone Self Fusing Tape.
It's much more durable than Velcro under extreme temperatures, water mud & dirt, and would never slide off.
If stretched a bit while wrapping (3~4 layers), it sticks to itself so well that you can't peel it off, you have to cut it.

Link - http://www.amazon.com/X-Treme-Tape-T...lf+fusing+tape

This one is 2" wide, also available in 1" width.

 

I've had no trouble with the Velcro One-wrap coming loose in any kind of weather, including Alaskan snowstorms on the Dalton Highway and long interstate runs at high speed in the heat of summer. Silicone self-fusing tape is great and has lots of uses, but I wouldn't want to use something that required that you cut it to get the lock off.

 

That was just an idea, it's your baby...
I thought about removing the lock, than it occurred to me that there's actually no need to remove it.